Darker Than Black
by Trevor Edwards
Summary: Dick encounters a mysterious female vigilante who plans on crossing the line to achieve her definition of justice. *Currently no plans to move forward with this story.*


Gotham City. The one place in the world that never **truly **changed. The world had encounter disaster after disaster. Cities demolished and rebuilt; hundreds of millions dead and buried. No matter what the situation, Gotham never changed. It remained the same dark, smoggy, wet place it had been since Dick was a child; which was something he had mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it saddened and angered him that the city he had been fighting for over half of his life had still not been won. On the other hand, it was secretly somewhat reassuring knowing that no matter what happened, no matter where he went, Gotham would always be the way he had left it.

A single drop of rain broke his train of thought, landing on the left lens of his mask. He tilted his head upward and met the rainfall dead on. The drops increased in frequency and size, just like they did most other nights. _Always with the gloom, _he thought as he brought his head back down.

From up high the view of the city was astonishing. It was one of the things Dick loved most about prancing from rooftop to rooftop all night. All lit up, the skyline looked hopeful and majestic; a much different image than what was to be seen down below on Gotham's streets. With that thought, his eyes wandered down from the skyline to the damp streets. The view transformed from bright lights to seemingly endless darkness in almost an instant. That is, until the flashing lights came into view. Dick waited and listened as the screaming of police sirens grew louder. He counted seven squad cars fly by below him. _Wonder what the show is for? _He thought as he continued to look on. Before they got out of sight, he rose from his perched position and fired off a grappling line.

The GCPD cruisers raced on for several blocks before coming to screeching halt outside an old, run down warehouse. Dick landed on the rooftop of a building adjacent to the warehouse. The place wasn't a pretty sight; boarded up and broken windows, cracked concrete, a structure in extreme disrepair. It was a common sight in Gotham and something that the Wayne Foundation had been battling for as long as he could remember.

He tapped the side of his mask, engaging its binocular function, but between the police lights and the boarded up windows, he wasn't able to get much of an idea as to what the situation was. He tapped the mask again, disengaging the binoculars. _Gotta love surprise_,he thought as he quickly secured a zip line and swung over to the warehouse.

He could hear the police stirring below him as he soared overhead. Even under present circumstances, it was hard to not get lost in the euphoric feeling that accompanied flying between buildings. One of the officers must have spotted him, because as soon as he touched down on the roof, spotlights were aimed in his direction. He couldn't help but let out an annoyed sigh as he retracted his line and made his way toward the broken skylight that sat dead center of the roof. Once again, he tapped his mask, this time activating its night-vision mode. He could see several thugs pacing back and forth below. He narrowed his eyes as he counted the men. _Nine. All armed. Automatic weapons. Easy enough, _he thought as he prepared to jump in and intervene.

Before leaping into action, Dick spotted something he really didn't like. He double tapped his mask, zooming in. His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched, and his stomach turned at what he saw. This wasn't your typical drug or arms deal, as he initially thought it may have been; it was something much more sinister. Once he had increased the zoom, he could clearly see an open shipping container, one not filled with the usual contraband, but with people. _"**Not **tonight. **Not** in **this city**." _He whispered before leaping down through the already fractured skylight.

Within seconds of his body entering the warehouse, he was engulfed in a hail of gunfire. He managed to twist out of harm's way, landing clumsily behind a large, wooden crate. _Way to go, Grayson, _he thought as he collected his bearings. He could hear the bullet-storm on the other side of the crate and knew it wouldn't be long before it resembled some kind of chewed up dog toy. He pulled several marble sized gas pellets out of his belt and lobbed them over the crate. He could hear the gunmen begin to wheeze and cough as the pellets produced a faint, hissing sound; this was his cue. He flew out from behind the crate, launching several batarangs. Three met their targets dead-on, knocking them off their feet; the fourth nicked its target, dazing him, but it gave Dick enough time to act. He launched himself into the air, landing a kick square in the chest of his fourth target. _Four down. Five to go, _he noted as he spun around in search of the others.

One of the remaining men tried rushing Dick head-on with a knife. This brash display of stupidity left Dick smirking. He sidestepped to the left of the man, quickly twisting the hand that held the weapon and landing an elbow in the man's back, knocking him unconscious. Before the thug even hit the ground, a second wave of gunfire flew towards Dick. Once again, he flipped out of the way, this time sliding much more gracefully behind one of the building's concrete pillars. He glanced upwards through the skylight and caught a glimpse of a slender figure on the rooftop. Between the constant muzzle flashes, the bright police lights and the shards of glass that remained in the skylight, his view was distorted, though he could most definitely tell the figure was female in gender.

_"That's just great,"_ he muttered as he returned his attention to the gunfire that was eating rapidly through the concrete. _Why in the Hell is Selina here? _He wondered as he waited for thug's clips to empty. Suddenly, there was a loud crash on the other end of the warehouse, which seemed to grab the attention of Dick's attackers. This gave him a large enough window to slide out from behind the pillar and send two more batarangs and another small pellet soaring through the air. The batarangs made perfect contact with their targets; knocking them off their feet, as they did to the first wave of attackers. The pellet flew past the batarang's targets and made contact with a third man, instantly exploding as it touched him. Unlike the previous spherical devices that he had employed, this one encased its victim in a sticky, rubbery substance, rendering them immobile. The smirk returned to Dick's face as he watched the man struggle before falling flatly on the ground.

Once more, his attention shifted as heard a series of screams coming from the rooftop. He fired his grappling line back up at the shattered skylight he had come through, but he was too late. Before the soles of his boots even made contact with the roof he was witness to a horrifying sight. The slender, feminine figure he had seen moments earlier wasn't Selina Kyle, as he had thought; it was someone he wasn't sure he had even seen before. She was standing over the final thug, her left hand tightly gripping a silenced .45. Blood and bits of the man's skull were scattered along the roof in front of her.

Dick's eyes narrowed as he slowly advanced towards the woman. She was wearing a kind of skin-tight body suit, not unlike the kind Talia al Ghul had employed in the past. Her full-faced mask was reminiscent of Cassandra's Batgirl mask, with the exception that this mask didn't have ears.

She turned and raised her weapon, not hesitating to fire at Dick. He dove out of the bullet's path and slid behind an air conditioning unit. A slight sense of discomfort nagged at him and as he looked down at his left side he could see that the bullet had grazed him, ripping part of his suit and leaving a gash that was going to require stitches. _Her aim is good, _he thought as he waited for the gunfire on the other side of the unit to stop. Once it did, he quickly lunged out from behind it; batarangs in hand, but the woman was nowhere to be found.

Dick made his way back over to the skylight, peering in at the GCPD officers who had stormed the warehouse, presumably while he was mid-conflict with his mystery attacker. He watched closely as the officers helped scared women and children out of the shipping container, some no older than six or seven. His heart melted at the sight and his eyes couldn't help but release a thin stream of tears. Gotham was home to a lot of dark and dirty things, but crimes like these, crimes against people so young and so helpless were hard to stomach, even for a veteran.

The pain from his side began to grow and he knew that spending what was left of the night hunting for his mystery femme fatale would inevitably cause him to further open the wound. He mulled over stopping by one of the many stockpiled safe houses that Bruce kept throughout the city in case of emergency, but after the night's event it wasn't just his side that needed attention.


End file.
